THE CHRONICLES OF MARY’N HURRELL.

Otago Witness, Issue 3672, 29 July 1924, Page 65

THE CHRONICLES OF MARY’N HURRELL.

VIII.—“DEAD HORSE.”

By

Emily Baizeen.

(For the Witness.) From heaven to earth is a long fall; and so it was from the gaiety of the previous night to another sordid, working dav at Braemar—with the music of the ballroom still resouding in our ears and mingling with the ceaseless whirr of the machinery all day long. And yet they were good days also, those which came after our picnics or our dances—living the bright hours over again with our workmates, and having our lunchtime gossip brightened by many a fresh interest. . . My first thoughts that morning were not, as might be supposed, of the dance, or Alf Trent; of Dale Martin, or Dora: but of a horrid pile of dead horse ” which awaited me at Braemar. For the benefit of those who are not familiar with factory workers’ lore it should be stated that dead horse means finishing a bundle of work for which you have already been paid. ‘Dead horse ” is not good business at all—being a repayment with a depressing amount of interest added, which robs you of hope concerning the largeness of your next week’s salary. Well, 1 had a dozen “dead horse ’ to get through that morning before I could make a start on the new week’s work; and, thinking of it grim'v, as we walked towards Braemar, Tootsie's voice at my side at last became a jangling discord in my ears.

“ Didn’t we have a lovely time last night? ’’ she went on, answering herself unconcernedly, when I did not take that trouble; “I do like Dale, Mary’n, and I'm so glad he was there—isn't it lucky for him, too? He knows where they s ept now. I wish he uould come to see us sometimes—did you ask him? i suppose you wouldn’t think of that- in the middle of all the excitement. Never mind—we can easily find him out now, and we'll get him to come along some evening and sing for us —I’m sure Dad likes him. I wonder if he'd let me invite t'lp+.i with his violin? T know he’s on'v an Italian hoy—hut he is very, very nicely rn nnered, and he can play, and sing too —far better than Dale,” she added triumphantly. “ How do you know? ” I asked. “ He told me so.’’ “ But he should let otirers say that, I objected “ Well,” she defended her hero eager.y, “ he is going to sing m the Temperance Hall competitions soon, and so we will be able to iudge for ourselves then, if we are allowed lo go.' “ My word, you did get on with your new friend,” I remarked. “ Not any better than you did with the new cutter,” she retorted, calmly placing cur cases as equal. ' Dow do yoc. like him, Mary’n ? And —oh, yes, why did you blush when he was talking to your You promised to tell me, Mary’n, she urged. “ it wasn’t much —and I’m sure i never blushed ” “ Well—what was it, anyhow? ” insistently. “ Oh—he just said I was a nice g : rl. or something like that.” ‘ Pooh ! Everybody knows that—we don’t want him to tell us ” “He was telling me, though,” I interrupted hastily. We were entering Braemar then, and I was rather nervous of her blunt, unrestrained manners —more especially if Alf Trent should happen to he waiting for me at tne door of the cutting-room, and—- “ There he is now,” she whispered. “Doesn’t he like himself?” she added sarcastically—she had not “taken” to Alf at all “Good morning!” he greeted us pleasantly. “How are you both feeling alter your dissipation last night*'” I said I felt a hit tired; but Tootsie was scornful, and said that she could dance all day and all night without feeling tired. “You are enthusiastic,” said Alf. “Fancy never being tired 1” “Oh, I do get tired,’ - she objected at once. “Work makes me tired, and a lot of other things besides, but not dancing. They ought to have music set to our work, and more people would like it then,” she added. We laughed, and Alf said it might be too diverting to be cutting out a block of cuff-bands to the strains of “Ching, Ching, Chinaman” or “Sons of the Sea.” “I’d rather 4 Ma Mie Rosette ’ and 4 Floradora,’ ’’ said Tootsie. The whistle for starting our work sounded just then, and Alf came nearer to me and said gently : “II me you won’t have to work very hard to-day.” He spoke softly and to myself alone, but Tootsie answered him in my stead. She seemed to enjoy managing my affairs. •‘She will have to, then—she’s got a dozen 4 dead horse’ to finish!” Alf looked at me with sympathy and some tenderness. “Dead horse 1” he repeated with quick concern, “That’s too bed after the ball and all—never mind, Mary’n,” he added so unexpectedly and intimately, that I left him blushing furiously for the second time at what he said to me —in Tootsie's presence, too!” “Him!” she scoffed as we went up the stairs to our room above. “Don’t take any notice of his cheek, Mary’n; he’s

only trying to get you with his grand ways and airs. ‘ Dissipation last night,’ he says, and ‘ you are enthusiastic, and the music would be ‘ too diverting.’ He’s only a * Cholly, Oscar, Dwum-major,’ Mary’n, and I wouldn’t be bothered with him, if I were you,” she finished earnestly. (That was rather wise counsel you gave me that day, little Tootsie • but just the same it is the sort of advice we never dream of taking, and I cannot even yet say that I ever regretted not having done so.) "I’m not bothering about him,” I answered. “I’m more bothered about my ‘dead horse’ by far!” Which statement was perfectly true, just at the moment, of course. Alf Trent was a “gussie” without a doubt, but my heart was soon tightly attached to him and his “Collins strait cut” clothes and style. And I have never been more proud of any event in my life than this>—that he selected me from all the lovely girls at Brae mar to be his girl—albeit that I was to find out, what I did and what you will, about that honour, as my tale unfolds. I had just started on my “dead horse” that morning when the strap of the machine hreke, and it was fifteen minutes ere Peter Power, the workroom mechanic, could come to fix it. “Sorry Mary’n.” said Peter briskly, “but the cotton-winder took longer than I expected.’’ “I’m working ‘dead horse’ too,” I grumbled. Then he found it needed splicing as well, and I grew angry with my fate, at least of that morning’s fate. “What a bother! I am an unlucky beggar,” I cried Peter regarded me solemnly. “I am surprised,” he said, “that you can talk like that after tho brilliant success you were last night.” “Don t be a fool,” I retorted crosslv. “No, I won’t.” he returned smiling calmly. “T here’s two now isn't there without me?” I didn’t answer, and he said quietly. “This sweating business is pretty rotten—when a few minutes makes such a difference—and there will be another ‘hold-up’ for the whole lot of you this afternoon—Jean Allen’s presentation you know.” He remined me of something pleasant and I softened at once. “Nobody will mind giving a few minutes to Jean,” 1 said. “I knew I’d get you there,” Peter laughed Jean Allen was one of the oldest employees and she was leaving us now. in her fortieth year, to marry an old lover. There was a solid silver tea service town in the manager’s office for Jean, from all of us—and she had promised to tell us her twenty-vear-old romance that day in the lunch hour—so the ok! world of ours held something sweet and comforting besides dreary shirt-seaming and “deadhorses, and T supposed in a resigned sort of way that I’d get through mine some day even as Jean" had got thro i {b hers. But I would never be as deserving of perfect happiness as Jean Allen if ] lived to be a hundred— T could never have done the sublimely noble and beautiful action that she did, it wasn’t in my rt m-position—-and her story is as rare as blue roses I should think. Here it is: —- Jean regarded us in one affectio late glance seeming to greet each one in a. specially personal way as she started on her story. “I know that you will miss me,” she began, “because I have been at Braemar for so many years, and because you have always been my kindest and dearest friend. I have worked here by the side of your mothers in many cases and I have loved you all dearly—dearly. I have watched you start working in the factory, and to some of you I have said in my heart: “That is Mary’s little girl and that is Katie s—and she might have been my little girl if—well that ‘if is the whole 'of my romance which drifted away from me in such a remarkable way-—I ' will tell you how it was. Just twenty years ago, there was working in this factory—a lovely girl. Her name was Flora M’Tntosh, and she was my own lonely little orphaned cousin. i loved Flora better than any other person in the world at that time, with the exception, ot course, of my dear mother.” Jean paused, and we glanced at her black mourning dress with tender pity—■ her sorrow was but a few months old, and the big, hard clods were not yet covered with grass on that grave where Jean would have stood alone but for the Braemar girls. And there was a certain wistfulness in her eyes as she looked at us to-day and went on with her story: “ Flora came to live with us when her parents died, and she earned her living here just as I did. But she was not strong like I am, and very soon the hard factory work began to tell its tale in her pale face and thin body. And one very hot day in November she alarmed me greatly by fainting over her work. After that she had a lengthy illness in the public hospital, and the doctors agreed that her time on this earth could not be for very long—a few months at most, —so she came hack again to us and spent her days in bed or on the sitting room sofa. And my mother said that her best time was when I was at home in the evenings chatting with her about the girls at work. But for all our care of her she seemed to fade a little each day Well, just about that time Peter Power’s aunt became engaged to marry that young and handsome Brandon O’Neill—and Flora and I were invited to the wedding. Flora

loved weddings, and all the pretty bridal clothes, more than any girl 1 ever knew, and she grew strangely excited about this one. So I promised to hire a cab and take her to it if she was well enough on that day—which I doubted very much. However, Flora looked lovely that dayjust a frail wisp of thistle-down, of course, but brighter than she had done since her illness. Coming home in the cab, though, she suddenly burst into tears, and con tinued to weep bitterly all the way home. She said that she wanted to live and be married like other girls, and wear a beautiful veil and orange blossom. She was too young to die; she didn’t want to die, for she loved life dearly, and she hadn’t hurt anybody-—then why should she have to die? I did all I could to soothe her—and after a while she cuddled up against me and asked me to forgive her for being so ungrateful. That evening she became so ill that I had to call my mother —and we both thought that poor Flora would not live to see the morning. I went at once for the nearest doctor whilst my mother watched over our dear girl. . . And that was how it came about that I met my lover and my dear future husband at midnight, in the deserted street, just as he was turning into old Dr Dean’s garden. The old doctor was away in England then, and a young doctor named Marchmont was in his place—and it was he whom I. met at the garden gate. We lived but a few streets away, and he walked back with me at once. He has since told mo that he liked me from the first moment of our acquaintance—and I? I had loved him always. Ho was the only man 1 ever could marry, and that just as willingly the day after I met him as I am going to now after 20 years have gone by. He came to our home very often after that first visit, and I used to think he came to see Flora, even after she was comparatively better. I asked him privately if he thought she would recover her strength again and live, and he very decidedly shook his head and backed up the opinions of the hospital doctors. “Dr Marchmont continued in his habit of calling to see Flora, and I was forced at last to think he was in love with her. And one day she shyly confessed to me her love for him. 4 I love* Dr Marchmoiit,” she said, “and I believe that he loves me —don’t you, Jean? ’ “I said I did, and I encouraged her in her fairy dream at once. So we each dreamed our separate dreams for a few weeks, until one morning as I was starting out tor Braemar, my mother walked with me down to- the garden gate. I was utterly astonished when she took both my hands in her own then, and said gently : “‘Jean —my dear —Dr Marchmont spoke to me last night- about his love-—for you—l think you love him—l—may God bless you both,’ she added, leaving me abruptly because she felt as all mothers do when they are called upon to share the heart of their only child. All that day my mind was in a whirl—one moment so happy that my whole being thrilled with joy—the next filled with an unspeakable sorrow and pity for poor Flora. At the end of the day, and before I had spoken with the doctor, I had made up my mind never to take my cup of happiness at the price of her misery, no matter what I or he might have to suffer. “ ‘ Out on our front verandah that evening Richard Marchmont wooed me as though I were the greatest lady in the land, and I can place down that golden hour as the very happiest of my life; but I told him about Flora and how I, had encouraged her, and he, too, was distressed about it, and we pledged ourselves to keep our love a secret, and never for worlds to place a fresh pain in that dear, dying girl’s heart—and, thank God, we never did.

“ It was. Flora, though, who first proposed the strange idea of their marriage, and I, thinking her life might be made as happy as possible wnilst it lasted, actually forced my lover to pretend an engagement with her, and even got him to marry her by special favour in our little sitting room one day. It was a real marriage, by a real minister of religion, and the frail white blossom bride was dressed as prettily as her heart desired. And I gratefully kissed the bridegroom for doing as I wished, and I loved him more than ever for making my girl so happy. The whole affair was strange enough, you will admit, but a stranger thing yet was to happen in our little drama. Just three weeks after their marriage old Dr Deans returned from England, bringing with him some wonderful new discoveries from the great medical world beyond. And his first patient proved their success. It was the lovely girl-wife of Dr Marchmont. Flora slowly responded to the treatment, and subsequently recovered. I could not apologise to my lover because Flora’s health was restored —and, of course, the position eventually became an impossible one. So, when Richard was offered a good practice in the Old Country, through Dr Deans, he promptly accepted it, for both our sakes. ... I stood on the wharf’, twenty years ago, watching the boat which carried them away, and I was thankful for my mother’s tight grip on my arm. I never saw Flora again—she died last summer.” Jean sighed gently as she finished speaking, and we were silent for a few seconds. Then someone prompted softly : “And the doctor, Jean?” There was an unusual stillness in the big workroom as Jean answered simply, “He came hack for me last- week.” (To he continued.)